How to Listen Actively

Discover tips and techniques for better listening.

Listening is the passive process of hearing. Active listening is the active process of hearing. This may include verbal and nonverbal communication.

Benefits of Active Listening

Active listening is important because we almost always want people to hear and understand what we say. The problem is that communication isn’t always easy. We can easily misunderstand others and leave conversations feeling unheard, invalidated, and misunderstood. But, when we use active listening skills properly, we can connect more effectively.

What Makes Active Listening Hard?

Individual characteristics can sometimes make active listening hard. For one, active listening requires self-control. When trying to listen, many of us are instead mentally assigning judgment to the things we’ve just heard. We may be asking ourselves, is the speaker right or wrong? Do we have anything to add? What will I say in response to this? We are often reflecting on the content to help us prepare responses.

Many of us also fall into the role of problem-solving as it’s common to feel a need to “fix the issue” being shared with us. With the best of intentions, we may connect the speaker’s story with an experience of our own and provide input based on the strategies we’ve found helpful in the past. The problem is, if we are readying our response or coming up with solutions while someone is speaking, we are likely not fully present and engaged in first listening and understanding the speaker’s experience.

Remember, the goal of active listening is to understand. Being an active listener means making the choice not to speak, not to contribute your opinion, not to defend your perspective or belief, and not to offer solutions or suggestions for change in service of first fully understanding the speaker.

How to Listen Actively

There are four key pillars of active listening: preparation, open-ended questions, paraphrasing, and reflecting feelings (Nemec, Spagnolo, & Soydon, 2017).

● Preparation means setting yourself up for success by stopping other tasks and making sure you have the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to focus on the conversation.

● Open-ended questions are questions that require the speaker to elaborate on her/his perspective and give more than yes/no answers.

● Paraphrasing means restating the speaker’s content in your own words. While it may seem redundant and unnecessary, simply repeating back what you’ve heard in your own words communicates that you’re paying attention and understanding.

● Reflecting feelings asks you to empathize with the speaker by imagining how you might feel if you were in the speaker’s shoes. The more you can name the emotion, the more the speaker is likely to feel acknowledged and validated. ​

These are all characteristics of an excellent coach, counselor, and teacher.

Dos and don’ts of active listening based on the pillars above.

Dos:

● Meet your needs before the conversation

● Reflect on the content

● Empathize with the speaker

● Ask open-ended questions

Don’ts:

● Don’t interrupt

● Don’t pass judgment judge

● Don’t be distracted

● Don’t be on your phone

In conclusion

Active listening is a critical skill that can help us feel more connected. It can be hard and requires intention and effort but hopefully, these tips can help you build active listening skills in your real life.

And as is customary on Medium, I will introduce you to other writers published in Reciprocal.

In this article by Malini, she states she cannot write on any other platform, and she explains why. The second story is by Yana Bostongirl and she tells us about some bad advice she received on Medium. Enjoy.

Thank you for reading.

Valorie Lasley

Change your mind, change your world.